Grades predict college success more than test scores, study says

When it comes to success in college, a new study again raises questions about whether college-entrance exams such as the SAT predict how well students will do.

The study’s authors examined the records of 123,000 students at 33 colleges that don’t require students to submit test scores when they apply for admission. They compared the 70 percent of students who chose to submit their scores to the 30 percent who did not, and found no significant differences in the college grade-point averages or graduation rates between the two groups.

Students’ high-school grades were much better predictors of performance, the study’s authors said.

The report was welcome news for those who support test-optional policies, including Washington State University in Pullman, which says it was one of the largest test-optional public universities in the study.

In a prepared release, John Fraire, WSU’s vice president for student affairs and enrollment, said that some students who score low on college-entrance tests may get discouraged and not apply to college even if they have great potential for success.

But the study is unlikely to end the debate over the value of test scores in admissions.

In a report on NPR, an official of the College Board, which administers the SAT test, pointed to other research that concluded that grades and test scores together are a better predictor of college success than either alone. The College Board sponsored that study.

William Hiss, the principal investigator of the latest report, is someone who has supported test-optional policies for years. Hiss is the former dean of admissions at Bates College in Maine which, in 1984, became one of the first institutions to make test scores optional for applicants.

Hiss and Valerie Frank, the study’s other author and a former assistant admissions dean at Bates, wrote that they hope their work will encourage more colleges to alter their admissions policies. They also hope it will lead to more research to test what they’ve found.

They wrote that their research was funded by a private foundation, but do not name it.

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About the authors

John Higgins is one of Education Lab's reporters. He was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 2012 to 2013.

Katherine Long has been a reporter for The Seattle Times since 1990, focusing for the past three years on higher ed, with stories that have ranged from the complexities of prepaid tuition programs to nontraditional ways to earn a degree.

Claudia Rowe joined The Seattle Times’ reporting staff in 2013. She has written about education for The New York Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, among other publications.

Leah Todd is an education reporter at The Times. She previously covered education for the Casper Star-Tribune in Wyoming.

Mike Siegel has been a news photographer at the Seattle Times since 1987. His photography was used in a series titled "Methadone and the Politics of Pain," which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for investigative reporting.

Linda Shaw is The Times’ education editor. Previously, she covered public education as a reporter at The Seattle Times for more than two decades. Her coverage has won numerous national and local awards and honors.

Caitlin Moran is community engagement editor for Education Lab. She came to The Times from Patch, where she spent three years managing hyperlocal news websites on the Eastside.

About Solutions Journalism Network

The Education Lab project is being done with the support of the Solutions Journalism Network. SJN is a non-profit organization created to legitimize and spread the practice of solutions journalism: rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems.